


To Make Amends

by mjhealy



Category: Jagged Little Pill - Morissette & Ballard/Morissette/Cody
Genre: Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Other, Past Sexual Assault, i'm a simple girl i see a mother daughter pairing and i love them
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-29
Updated: 2020-04-16
Packaged: 2021-02-28 03:15:15
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,529
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22946908
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mjhealy/pseuds/mjhealy
Summary: MJ finally finds a way to share the truth with her daughter; Frankie doesn't know how to handle what she now knows about her mother.(This previously was published here in a different form, but I've edited the existing chapter and added a new chapter before it).
Comments: 2
Kudos: 13





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> TW: discussions of past rape, not detailed, but very much present.

MJ always wonders what Frankie does for hours on her phone.

Maybe it's a little remnant anxiety from the fights she and Steve used to have over her own phone - he'd always ask her to put her phone away when she tried desperately to hide behind it, all the while having no idea the shameful, disgusting secret she was using it for. Not that she thinks Frankie is doing anything bad, but as MJ peers over her book, watching her daughter sit cross-legged on the couch across from her, typing furiously, she wonders who she could possibly have so much to say to. She hasn't seen Jo around, since the time they ran into her on their way home from therapy. Which was also the time they found Frankie with a boy, who they never saw again, and of course, also the day MJ-

She pulls herself back into reality quickly, closing her book and placing it on the coffee table.

"Who ya talking to?" MJ asks. Frankie looks up at her mom, caught off guard by this sudden pry. 

"It's just a groupchat for one of my classes." MJ nods.

She sits for a second, wondering if she could get away with asking a little bit more if she catches her off guard. Not that she thinks she's lying, necessarily, but... “So what happened to the boy?” She asks, a much bolder question, her sudden curiosity getting the better of her. 

“The what?” Frankie looks at up at her in confusion, startled, not following whatever train of thought MJ is on. 

“The boy. The one who was in your bedroom back in December. I don’t know, I never asked and I was wondering-“

“It kinda ended, like, right after that.” Frankie says quickly, looking vaguely uncomfortable. Not her favourite memory - how it ended, or that humiliating moment with her parents in her bedroom, even without the baggage of what came later that day.

“Oh.” Now MJ feels a little bad bringing it up. She hadn’t realized this was something kind of serious, perhaps deluding herself into thinking that if Frankie had had a serious boyfriend, she would have known. Guess not. “Because of me?”

“No, honestly.” Frankie pauses briefly. “It was a little complicated. I kinda screwed up.”

“Oh-“ MJ starts again, before Frankie cuts her off, blurting the truth out.

“Jo and I were kind of a thing too. At the same time.” 

MJ feels the world shift into place, everything suddenly making sense. Of course they were. It had been so obvious, and she just hadn’t seen. Too caught up with my own shit, MJ thinks to herself.

“Well,” she smiles. “That makes a LOT of sense.” 

“So yeah, I was stupid,” Frankie says, rolling her eyes. “And now it’s really awkward with both of them. Friendly, I guess. But awkward.”

Well that explains why MJ hasn't seen either of them since. A little reassuring, as she was thinking maybe Frankie didn't want to bring her friends around anymore since she was embarrassed of her. But she doesn't think Frankie of all people would feel that way. At least, she hopes not.

"So you and Jo were dating this whole-"

"I wouldn't say dating," Frankie cuts in. "More like... I don't know. I guess Jo thought it was something more than I did. And then Phoenix..."

"Phoenix? That's his name?" MJ asks, a little amused.

"Yes, Phoenix. He was new and he was really nice and... I really, really liked him."

Oh. MJ's heart aches a little. She hates that she missed all this when it was happening, another reminder of how far gone she was by that point. She thinks back to how she'd reacted when she found Frankie after Phoenix, now realizing how upsetting that moment must have been for her daughter. Jo outside, Phoenix running away after what she can only assume was Frankie's first time, her parents bursting in on everything...

"I'm sorry, honey." MJ gives her a sympathetic smile. "I wish I'd known at the time."

"It's okay, you had a lot going on," Frankie replies. MJ hates that, hates that excuse, but she says nothing.

Frankie bites her lip, clearly trying to decide if she should say something else. There's something floating in the air, some moment of connection, a chance to share.

"It _was_ my first time," she says quietly. "You asked and I didn't want to say. You were so mad."

MJ's heart stops. She can't remember everything she said in that moment, but she more or less recalls the conversation, and she knows it was certainly not her finest parenting moment. And she remembers being scared, just terrified for Frankie in a way she didn't really understand at the time. Now she does. Now she understands what she was projecting onto her, unfairly. What she projected onto her in so many other ways, too. "I wasn't mad," she says softly. "I was..."

And then she's suddenly in this space she occasionally occupies lately, on the precipice of sharing a secret. She'll often find herself having these moments in conversation with anyone, a friend, an acquaintance, where the conversation would lead quite naturally to her mentioning her own experiences, the ones she finds almost impossible to speak about, and she feels herself almost yearning to say something, knowing this is the perfect moment, perfectly natural, maybe God's way of giving her an opening. It's always an internal battle. But this was something she had wanted to tell Frankie, eventually. When the time was right. 

"I'm sorry for how I reacted," she says instead, rubbing the back of her hand with her thumb.

"No, it's okay, you were... It's fine."

"It's not, really," MJ starts. "There were a lot of things that weren’t okay, things that were going on with me that I took out on you. Not the drugs. Well, that too, but…” She’s starting to lose her way, not sure what to say or how. 

“We don’t have to talk about this if you don’t want to,” Frankie says nervously. “I’m not mad at you, or anything.”

“I’m going to tell you something, because I think you deserve to know. A big reason why I wasn’t doing well this past year, and honestly a lot longer than that, and why I haven’t always been the best at handling certain…” She’s rambling, she knows, procrastinating this for both herself and for Frankie. She wants to share, she does, but it’s just so awkward, so difficult, and she can feel Frankie’s nervous energy radiating from five feet away. 

“Okay,” Frankie says quietly. MJ isn’t sure if she’s putting this off out of her own protection or more for Frankie’s, but she thinks probably the latter. She hates the idea of Frankie having to live with this knowledge, knowing how deeply empathetic and passionate she is. But Frankie is looking at her almost fearfully, and she realizes she needs to move this along. 

“In my first year of college, I got very, very drunk at a frat party, and this boy I was kind of friends with was really nice to me, and I was...“ MJ takes a tiny breath. Frankie stares at her, knowing clearly where this story is going but hoping desperately it won't, that MJ will prove her wrong. "I went with him to his room, because I trusted him, and then he raped me." 

“Oh.” Frankie’s heart is pounding so fast she thinks she might pass out. Wordlessly, she gets up from the couch and moves to sit next to her mom, wrapping her arms around her and squeezing her in a tight hug, feeling MJ relax into her arms, staying there for a moment. 

“I’m so sorry, mom,” Frankie whispers. 

MJ nods. “I’ve only recently kind of… accepted that. That I was raped, that that’s what happened. I never told a soul, I was so… embarrassed, ashamed, I never even told your father until this year.”

“God, I can’t imagine…” Frankie doesn’t quite have the words.

MJ pauses for a moment. She's not sure why she's sharing _so_ much with Frankie, but in some way there's a deeper connection here, with Frankie, who works so hard for justice for Bella, who holds rallies for survivors, who has always been able to see this as a cause and not as the darkest moment of her own mother's life. MJ needs her to understand. Her voice is quiet. "It's really hard not to blame yourself. Even now, after I've accepted that it was... I went to his room. I let him..." She stops herself there, suddenly remembering this is her daughter. She doesn't need to know the details. 

"None of that matters." MJ nods. 

“When you told me about Bella, about that kind of thing happening at your school… I mean, I’ve always been scared for you on some level but I just couldn’t handle the thought of…” She’s starting to struggle here, barely able to parse her own feelings about her children’s role in all this, let alone speak them out loud. “I was just so, so scared. I’m doing a lot better now, than I was last year, but, well, I don’t have to tell you, you know how... long this kind of damage lasts. I'd kind of convinced myself I'd moved on, for a very long time, but after the car accident, it just suddenly all came back. It was so bad, and I didn't know what to do. And then the thought of her, or God forbid you going through this, and that's why I... freaked out a bit when I found out you'd... I was just scared you were hurt.” 

Frankie reaches to hug her once again, not knowing how to respond to any of this. She’s not even sure what she’s feeling right now, shock or anger or just sadness. Mostly, she just feels the overwhelming desire to hold onto her mom, as tight as she possibly can, so she keeps her head buried in MJ’s shoulder, breathing into her. "

She can feel the weight of change in the air. This is different than when she told her therapist for the first time, or when she told Steve, or Nick. All of those moments changed her life, but this one did so in a way that is unlike the others. Suddenly, there’s this connection with Frankie she can’t explain, a mother-daughter link that feels changed by the fact that MJ has shared her darkest truth, and her biggest fear for the young woman she would do absolutely anything to protect. Like they can protect each other now.

She feels her throat swell, tears coming unexpectedly, and Frankie feels MJ’s shoulders start to shake as she begins to cry. She holds on to her daughter for another second before pulling away, trying to stop the flood of tears that are somewhere between joy and sadness. 

“Whew!” MJ laughs tearily, wiping her face quickly. “I didn’t think I’d get all weepy.” 

Frankie smiles a little to herself. MJ never lets them sit with real feelings for too long, always needing to lighten the mood with a joke. It’s so different from Frankie’s way of dealing with things. She isn’t ready to leave the moment behind.

“I wish I'd... known you were dealing with that. I love you so much, mom.” MJ only nods, not feeling ready to speak yet for fear of completely breaking down. “So, so much.” She buries herself in MJ’s chest, feeling her mom run her hand over her hair. MJ isn’t sure who is comforting who now, and maybe that’s what it is, the change she feels, the fact that they are both taking care of each other. MJ has spent so much time feeling guilty these past few months over how her children have been forced to care for her in ways no teenager should have to care for their mom, that in losing control of her life she also lost control over her role as their mother. And she’s still working on getting it back, but maybe it’s okay to let her kids into the darkest parts. Maybe this is what Frankie needed.

“I love you too, honey.” MJ breathes deeply, almost as though she’s breathing in Frankie, breathing in the love and trust they’re sharing in this moment. There have been so many turning points in her relationship with her daughter this past year, little and big, good and bad. As MJ holds Frankie tightly on the couch, she can’t help but feel this might be the biggest one yet.


	2. Chapter 2

Frankie can’t sleep.

She'd gone to bed relatively early, with a big test the next day that she’d been basically unable to study for. She'd been exhausted all day, her brain scattered and unable to focus, but now she’s lying in bed wide awake, unable to stop the racing of her thoughts. She can’t stop thinking about her mom.

It’s been two days since MJ had told Frankie the truth about what happened to her in college, since Frankie finally had a better understanding of why her mother had been in so much emotional pain that she’d turned to drugs to get through the day. She still feels unable to process her feelings, her shock. For two days, it’s been pretty much all she’s thought about.

She’s become pretty familiar with the topic of sexual assault this past year, devastatingly so, through hearing Bella tell her story, other survivors share theirs, and from the research she'd been doing to be a better activist. She’s been reading up on trauma, on lasting effects, stories that hurt her deeply and yet somehow always felt a comfortable step away from her own life. Now, suddenly, it’s smack dab in the middle of her life. Suddenly she can’t stop thinking about every painful detail she’s heard and placing it onto her mother. The fact that her mother had been hurt like that and had never told anyone, had just shouldered on and accepted it as her fault, made Frankie’s heart hurt in a way she hadn’t felt since, well, since those days after her mother’s overdose.

There’s a picture of MJ in high school on a table in their living room. Twice that day, Frankie had walked by it and found herself fighting tears looking at her, at this joyous look in her young mom’s eyes, a kind of hope for the future that reminds her of herself. It wasn't a look she could remember seeing on MJ’s face in so long. She felt like maybe she remembers her looking like that years ago, back when she and MJ were close and loved hanging out just the two of them, without the boys. Before all the anger set in. Now she can’t stop thinking about why her mom had become so exhausting and unbearable for her. She can’t stop over analyzing the little things she did, the way her mom would sometimes disappear to her room for a few hours after one of their fights and emerge 3 hours later with a smile plastered on her face and pretend nothing had happened. Frankie had hated that possibly more than anything else, the way nothing was ever resolved with MJ, how she'd just pretend nothing had happened, how she'd never EVER talk about her feelings. Everything looks so different in retrospect.

And then there’s the past year, the increasingly tense months before everything fell apart completely with the overdose. It had already been tough enough for the three other Healys to accept that they had let MJ get that bad and no one had noticed. The fact that it took her mother almost dying for any of them to even realize she had a problem was hard to handle, and Frankie had spent many an hour looking back at little details she wishes she'd paid more attention to, like the random walks MJ would disappear on or how she'd leave the room in a fury and come back 15 minutes later calm and acting like a different person. Now she’s also rethinking every conversation that she'd had with her mom about Bella. That first day when MJ had overheard her talking to Nick and had barged in only to tell her that it was "a shame, but it happens all the time." How Frankie had told her she didn't understand. How she'd later accused MJ of not caring what happened to Bella, of not getting any of it, only for that to be the day MJ was so upset that she... MJ had promised her it wasn't her fault, but Frankie doesn’t really believe her. She realizes now how triggered her mother had probably been by her constantly going on and on about the subject and she feels wholly, devastatingly responsible for what had happened to her mom afterwards.

Frankie feels herself tear up, dissolving quickly into a full-fledged cry, the first time she'd cried since she found out. She can’t stop imagining the story Bella had told her in excruciating detail but with her mother's face. She’s trying to keep her emotions in check, but she feels her breathing growing shallower and she finds herself unable to suppress her sobs, her cry turning into a full-fledged breakdown. It’s like all of it, the past days, the past year, are hitting her all at once, and she’s having trouble breathing.  
“Honey?” She hears her mother's voice outside the door. Of course, her mutant hearing. "Frankie, are you okay? Can I come in?"

"Sure," she hiccups, tears obvious in her voice. The door creaks open and Frankie sees MJ's silhouette in the doorway. She sits up in bed, reaching out to turn on the small lamp on her bedside table.

"Oh, honey,” MJ says softly, approaching the bed cautiously. Seeing her mom's face only makes Frankie's sobs increase, and MJ takes a seat on the side of the bed. "What's wrong?"

"I'm... I can't.... I...." Frankie hiccups, no clue how to verbalize what she’s feeling, especially not to her mom. She can’t tell her that the reason she’s upset is her. So instead she looks down at her lap, tears streaming but unable to say anything.

MJ reaches forward and wraps both arms around her daughter, allowing Frankie to bury her face in her shoulder as she cries. MJ's hand travels up and down her back, tracing a soothing pattern over Frankie's shaking shoulders.

"I know, I know," MJ whispers. They stay like that a moment, Frankie allowing her mom's warmth to envelope her, feeling her hand on her back. The smell of home and safety and this feeling of love that at one point she had almost forgotten. It had been so long since she'd thought of her mom as a figure of comfort. By last year, MJ had come to represent so much of what Frankie hated about her life, about who she was. But sitting here crying into her mother's arms for the first time in many years, she’s overwhelmed by how much she had needed this person back—the MJ who loves her unconditionally and ferociously. 

She pulls away from her, feeling her breathing steady. "I just can't stop thinking about... what you told me. I hate that that happened to you."

The words are like a punch in the stomach to MJ, but she swallows her own feelings. "I know. I do too. But I'm here, Frankie. And I'm doing okay, I really am," she smiles, reaching a hand to wipe Frankie's tears. “I’m okay."

"You're so strong," Frankie whispers.

"I'm not really," MJ replies, suppressing a laugh. "I definitely wouldn't say that."

"No, you are. I don't know how you went through... so much... and you just always put everyone else first. And I hate knowing that you were going through all that on your own, and we never knew, and..."

"Shhh," MJ whispers. "Frankie, I wish I was as strong as you. I really do. You blow me away. You just... you face every problem. That's what I was never able to do. That's what I'm trying to learn now." MJ smiles again. “I think about how brave you are all the time. I try to be like that.”

Frankie smiles back, but fresh tears spring to her eyes.

"Maybe I shouldn't have told you," MJ whispers, almost to herself. "It seemed right but I don't know... maybe that wasn't fair to you."

"No, I'm really glad you did, mom. It's... I understand you more."

"Okay," MJ says, wrapping her hand around Frankie's. "And I mean it, Frankie. I'm gonna be okay. I hate that I've worried you guys so much, but I promise we're all gonna be okay."

"Okay," Frankie replied, leaning forward into her mother again, MJ's arms wrapped around her.

Frankie can feel her heartbeat slowing for the first time in days. Her mom is still here, still her mom, still able to take care of her. And Frankie will take care of MJ in return, she promises herself. They’re here for each other. Maybe, she thinks, we really can get better.


End file.
